Records

I’ve been thinking about this for some time. For those of you who are old enough to remember, know what records are. I was a child of the 60’s and 70’s, and during that period of time I was into the latest music. Every time I had some of my allowance left, and my mother took us to Newberry’s, a department store in Cooperstown, I would buy a record.

We loved to go there. It had two floors! There was the main floor and stairs that took you to a lower floor. That’s where all the good things are. I always headed downstairs, and over to the record department. For those of you too young to remember some of this, records were the source of music for several decades.

Records were flat, round, vinyl discs, with grooves in them. The number varied, depending on how many songs were on it, and how long it took to play one. The came in three different sizes, 78’s, 45’s and 33 1/3’s. The first two were almost the same size, and a lot of the 78’s my mother had, were green! 78’s and 45’s came with one song on each side. Those would both be the same singer/band on each side. I don’t remember about the 78’s, but the 45’s came with paper covers, with a hole in the center and also displayed the name of the song and artist.

Then there were the 33 1/3’s. They had a larger diameter, and had varying numbers of songs on each side, all by the same artist. They were also made of vinyl. They were kept in cardboard sleeves. Near the end of the record era in music, albums started being advertised on TV, special ones that came in a collection of songs, by some of the “Greatest Artists” or “Greatest Songs.” I bought records.

And now,35 or more years later, I still have all my records, 45’s and 33 1/3’s which were called record albums. The 45’s were called singles. I bought both, and I STILL have them. A couple of days ago, my new stereo arrived. It plays CD’s, AM & FM radio, cassette tapes, and RECORDS. I can play any of these and record them onto my laptop! But I will still hold onto those records, even after I have digitized them onto my computer. I think some day they will be worth something.

Records were played on record players, most of them capable of playing a number of records, one after the other. The newer models would automatically bring the needle holder arm back to start and drop the next record and automatically start playing that one. The ones I had over the years were like that. The methods of playing music has gone through quite the change over the years. I was born at a time which allowed me to watch this change, through many forms of media, and are still changing today.